He suddenly changed the subject and smiled faintly at Sandra Cooper:

"By the way, Sandra Cooper, I can smell thirteen kinds of medicinal herbs on you—purple blood vine, cypress bark, green whisker grass, and so on. Based on this, I can tell that you've been diligently practicing the method of refining 'Blood Replenishing Pills' lately.

But the burnt smell on you is too strong, and there's too little fragrance. This is the result of failed alchemy. Clearly, your success rate in refining medicine is less than fifty percent.

Although this Blood Replenishing Pill is low-level, it tests your control over the heat the most. When refining a batch of Blood Replenishing Pills, you should only add five pieces of charcoal evenly to the furnace during the time it takes to drink a cup of tea—no more!

But you lack a bit of patience, wanting to finish refining the ingredients quickly, and without realizing it, you added one or two extra pieces of charcoal, causing the heat to be too strong and burning the furnace."

"How... how did you know that?"

Sandra Cooper's expression was one of shock.

She was still confused in her heart.

She herself never bothered to count the speed at which she added charcoal during alchemy.

But thinking back carefully, it did seem like she added the charcoal a bit too quickly when burning the furnace. In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, it seemed to be six or seven pieces.

William Harris continued slowly, "When refining low-level pills like the 'Blood Replenishing Pill,' aside from adding the wrong amount of heat—which leads to burnt failures—the success rate is almost one hundred percent. But your success rate is less than fifty percent, which proves that your mind can't settle down during alchemy; your thoughts are all elsewhere. With this kind of mindset, you're still thinking about relying on Ryan Johnson's connections to join the Alchemist Guild? If you were just a bit more patient and observed the heat more carefully, you'd be able to join the Alchemist Guild sooner or later. Why bother pulling strings?"

To put it bluntly, Sandra Cooper actually has enough talent for alchemy.

It's just that she lacks confidence and can't focus on alchemy, which has led to her recent string of failures. This in turn made her even less confident, so she wanted to rely on Ryan Johnson's powerful family to get into the Alchemist Guild.

"Is that so?"

Sandra Cooper's face turned a bit pale, looking lost and dejected.

It took her a while to understand the reasoning, and then she suddenly burst into tears, covering her face and sobbing loudly.

The reason she was so determined to break up with William Harris and accept Ryan Johnson's pursuit was precisely because she wanted to use Ryan Johnson's family connections to enter the city's Alchemist Guild.

If she could get into the Alchemist Guild on her own strength, her future would be just as bright—so why would she need to accept Ryan Johnson's pursuit?

Even if she wanted to break up with William Harris, there was no need to bring up Ryan Johnson, earning herself an undeserved reputation for "vanity."

William Harris let out a faint sigh and slowly closed the divine book "Shang" that was flipping rapidly in his sea of consciousness.

Using the vast, star-like knowledge within to deal with the likes of Eric Johnson, Wayne Miller, and Sandra Cooper—just a few young martial students—was like an elephant stepping on ants: total domination.

His expression was wooden as his gaze swept over the martial students in the class.

One by one, the young martial students lowered their heads in fear, not daring to meet his eyes.

Sandra Cooper was the goddess of the class. On normal days, all the martial students would rack their brains to please her, afraid she might suffer even the slightest grievance.

But now, even though she was crying so sadly, no one dared to step forward and say a word for her.

Whoever William Harris's icy gaze landed on would be struck with terror, not daring to meet his eyes.

As William Harris's gaze swept across the classroom, all the young martial students fell into a deathly silence of panic.

Not a sound could be heard!

Each of them looked at William Harris in fear, terrified of being singled out by him.

Because they all had weaknesses they deliberately hid, things they didn't want outsiders to know—some even had flaws they themselves weren't aware of, and didn't want exposed in public.

William Harris's insight was too sharp, his perception too terrifying—whoever he looked at was doomed.

That feeling was like being stripped naked in public in an instant, not even your underwear left, your whole body exposed to the strange gazes of everyone around.

No one wanted to experience that kind of terrifying humiliation.

A cold smile played at the corner of William Harris's mouth, and he quickly lost all interest in this group of terrified young martial students.

Once, he could only look up to them.

He was deeply humble, not even daring to say an extra word to them.

Now, seeing them all bow their heads in fear—so what?

The classroom was too stuffy, making it hard for him to breathe.

William Harris didn't want to stay in the oppressive atmosphere any longer, so he got up and left the classroom.

Anyway, tomorrow was the joint exam for the top ten martial academies of Luyang Prefecture, and after advancing to the prefectural academy, he wouldn't have to see these people again.

"You..."

Megan Walker opened her mouth to call out to William Harris, but forcibly swallowed her words.

She didn't know if William Harris would say something else, like he did to Eric Johnson, Cooper, Wayne Miller, and Sandra, making her, the instructor, lose face in public and feel utterly humiliated.

She didn't dare take that risk.

At this moment, Megan Walker felt lost.

She had taught at Nancheng Martial Academy for years and had never encountered a student like this.

Clearly just an ordinary, unremarkable young martial artist, yet in the last class before graduation, he suddenly burst forth with dazzling brilliance, like the blazing sun in the sky—so bright that no one could look directly at him, making all his peers pale in comparison.